The good: It's like FFXI! The Bad: It's like FFXI... Not for everybody, but the right crowd will appreciat
The Good:
-FFXI's wonderful sense of rhythm in battle and the excellent movement controls return. That is, if you're using a gamepad. Good PC games that work well with a gamepad have become few and far between. I prefer a PS2 pad with an adapter, but the 360 wired controller works alright too.
-It's cinematic. One of the reasons I could never get into "Western" MMOs was the complete disregard for any sense of storytelling. Text would pop up in a box with little or no fanfare and that was your story. FFXI showed how it could be done differently, with character animation and cut-scenes for most quests. FFXIV continues that tradition, but adds voice acting for some of the important moments. It's reminiscent of FFX in that regard.
-So far, it feels solo friendly. I quit FFXI after 50 levels of group searching, but would have continued if they had tweaked it. I know they added a few outlets for solo questing, but they felt tacked on and were still full of grinding. With the levequests and such, FFXIV has more potential to keep you playing when you can't find a group.
-Lodestone. Lodestone is a player blog site, as well as a pseudo-manual. It's not great, but it's a nice little bonus. I know that EQII used to charge for this sort of thing, but you get it free with FFXIV. Check it out - http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com
The Bad:
-Hardware mouse cursor kills performance. This is completely absurd. If you're not playing with a gamepad, and you need it enabled, you may have a bit of "input lag." -Input lag is annoying. Basically, if you push your settings too high, the game will put rendering as its priority, rather than responsiveness. Thus, your inputs are about half-a-second late registering onscreen. The positive side of this is that it's a good indicator of where you should put the settings in regard to your system, but it's depressing when you have to turn things down a lot just to get input synchronization.
-No surround sound options? Not a huge deal, but I guess it just uses the Windows settings there.
-Visually, it's not a huge leap. At least not like FFXI was. FFXI had a visual style that used limited geometry but looked amazing, while FFXIV looks about average. Maybe it's because I can't turn on ambient occlusion without a huge performance hit...
-There isn't much of a need to party early on, at least from what I've seen. I'm level 4 and I haven't grouped yet, and don't see anything that *really* requires grouping at this level.
The Ugly:
-The chat interface is inferior to FFXI in every way. While it seems like it has potential, it's not well implemented *yet*. Essentially, the chat box is still in beta, and they haven't even added the Ctrl+R reply shortcut yet (they say it's coming). That's right, you have to type "/t Person's Name Hey dude the chat interface sucks" if you wish to lament about it to your friend. Keyboard keys now have specific functions, so you can't just start typing like FFXI. Space opens the chat line. Forward slash starts typing a command. It works, but it's definitely not great. The chat filters SHOULD be great, but they're not... yet. With those, you can define tabs in your chat box with different kinds of messages visible. The problem is that there's only two and no "add another tab" button yet. NPC dialog shows up in text boxes AND the chat log, so I want to turn it off in my main feed. Then, if I want to go back to refer to it, I need it on in another tab, but my other tab is for battle logs. I'd also like a separate linkshell and party tab, but it isn't possible. FFXI had a way to flip through your chat log with those particular filters, but it's absent here. -The manual SUCKS. There's more info on Lodestone, but combined the two are still less than the FFXI manual. Seriously, the game needs proper documentation. Even a fold-out quick reference card would be great. Judging by the unused box space in the CE, Squenix can afford it.
-If you're used to Warcrap and Western MMOs, the game will make you feel like a stranger in a strange land. If your reaction to something "different" and "unique" is anything along the lines of "WTF is this junk" you would do well to avoid FFXIV. It is what it is, and there is a distinct fanbase for it. Don't blow $75 on it if you don't know what you're getting into.
-The door hinges in Gridania aren't screwed on right. No, really, I knocked one of the doors down when I opened it. Check out my blog about it on Lodestone - http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com/rc/diary/entry?e=10727
That said, I'm enjoying it. It's not perfect, but there's huge potential here. Give it a few patches, and it should be a worthy successor to FFXI and a perfect console-style alternative to the current MMO market. It's not for everybody, but the right audience will absolutely love it for what it is. I'm on Wutai server, and my character name is Nayus Dante.